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Reading Wednesday
Apr. 28th, 2021 07:55 amJust finished: Hench by Natalie Zina Walschots. Hoo-boy do I have some mixed feelings about it, and I'm hoping that some of you have either read it or will read it so that I can find out of my reactions are justified.
It's about Anna, who temps for a supervillain, until she's injured by one of the superheroes he's fighting. Her villain boss abandons her and no one will believe that the upstanding, lantern-jawed Supercollider is responsible for her injuries (or if he was, she deserved it). Left to convalesce at a friend's house, she starts tallying the cost of superheroics in terms of collateral damage to both civilians and henchpeople, which draws the attention of Leviathan, the most powerful of the supervillains in the city.
I will just say that I love the concept. I'm one of those people who watches superhero movies and complains that no, those buildings wouldn't have been empty, there would be all kinds of collateral damage, and neither Marvel and DC do not adequately or realistically address the human suffering that would result from their plot points. Also apparently a thing I enjoy reading about in fantasy are the pragmatics of the world, particularly economics, so focusing the story around accounting and data entry made me nerd out.
That said, I almost noped out of this one because the first few chapters are just...not well-written? Stylistically, it felt like chick lit, and thematically, it didn't lean enough into the genre tropes of either of the genres it mashed up. It felt like it was trying to appeal to a book club audience that wasn't familiar with superhero narratives. There was little differentiation between character voices, so I had to count lines to see who was speaking. This book was published by HarperCollins and made Canada Reads and it felt as under-edited as all the fantasy books I seem to be reading lately.
And then, I dunno, something flipped and I couldn't put it down. I still feel like it was under-edited, but it managed to hook me anyway. I think it was the description of living with chronic pain, tbh. I am pretty sure the author Got It from actual experience. The way pain can transform your personality and take over your life is, let's just say, a metaphor that I connect with. And ultimately I did connect with the characters and staying up late to see where it went.
So unlike nearly every fantasy novel I've read lately where the opening chapters were amazing and the middle and ending are a let down, this is one where the opening chapters suck but the rest of it was good, actually.
(I also have mixed feelings about it because people keep telling me that my novel is too much of a genre mashup to be published in Canada's very conservative market, and this is also a mashup that ended up being successful. Why yes, everything I read now is filtered through a lens of "what does this mean for my own chances?")
Also, full-disclosure—I am one degree of separation from the author and I know a good 50% of the people she thanks in the acknowledgments IRL, including her partner. I did not know this until I finished the book, so it didn't colour my impression of the book or anything. But we'd probably get along, I think.
Currently reading: Nothing. None of my holds have come in recently. I picked up Tor's Fantasy from Asia and the Asian Diaspora, which I'd downloaded at some point, only to discover that this was not an anthology of short stories and was in fact a bunch of chapters from novellas. I started reading the first story and it was quite good, only to find out that it was only the first two chapters.
But yeah, give me some recs. For some reason my usual strategy of browsing Overdrive in search of things that I meant to read was not at all successful last night and I just got annoyed.
It's about Anna, who temps for a supervillain, until she's injured by one of the superheroes he's fighting. Her villain boss abandons her and no one will believe that the upstanding, lantern-jawed Supercollider is responsible for her injuries (or if he was, she deserved it). Left to convalesce at a friend's house, she starts tallying the cost of superheroics in terms of collateral damage to both civilians and henchpeople, which draws the attention of Leviathan, the most powerful of the supervillains in the city.
I will just say that I love the concept. I'm one of those people who watches superhero movies and complains that no, those buildings wouldn't have been empty, there would be all kinds of collateral damage, and neither Marvel and DC do not adequately or realistically address the human suffering that would result from their plot points. Also apparently a thing I enjoy reading about in fantasy are the pragmatics of the world, particularly economics, so focusing the story around accounting and data entry made me nerd out.
That said, I almost noped out of this one because the first few chapters are just...not well-written? Stylistically, it felt like chick lit, and thematically, it didn't lean enough into the genre tropes of either of the genres it mashed up. It felt like it was trying to appeal to a book club audience that wasn't familiar with superhero narratives. There was little differentiation between character voices, so I had to count lines to see who was speaking. This book was published by HarperCollins and made Canada Reads and it felt as under-edited as all the fantasy books I seem to be reading lately.
And then, I dunno, something flipped and I couldn't put it down. I still feel like it was under-edited, but it managed to hook me anyway. I think it was the description of living with chronic pain, tbh. I am pretty sure the author Got It from actual experience. The way pain can transform your personality and take over your life is, let's just say, a metaphor that I connect with. And ultimately I did connect with the characters and staying up late to see where it went.
So unlike nearly every fantasy novel I've read lately where the opening chapters were amazing and the middle and ending are a let down, this is one where the opening chapters suck but the rest of it was good, actually.
(I also have mixed feelings about it because people keep telling me that my novel is too much of a genre mashup to be published in Canada's very conservative market, and this is also a mashup that ended up being successful. Why yes, everything I read now is filtered through a lens of "what does this mean for my own chances?")
Also, full-disclosure—I am one degree of separation from the author and I know a good 50% of the people she thanks in the acknowledgments IRL, including her partner. I did not know this until I finished the book, so it didn't colour my impression of the book or anything. But we'd probably get along, I think.
Currently reading: Nothing. None of my holds have come in recently. I picked up Tor's Fantasy from Asia and the Asian Diaspora, which I'd downloaded at some point, only to discover that this was not an anthology of short stories and was in fact a bunch of chapters from novellas. I started reading the first story and it was quite good, only to find out that it was only the first two chapters.
On the plus side, given Tor's ahem-editing issues lately, maybe I'll enjoy books more if I only read the first two chapters.
But yeah, give me some recs. For some reason my usual strategy of browsing Overdrive in search of things that I meant to read was not at all successful last night and I just got annoyed.
